


In The End

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Future Imperfect [1]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 19:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11539338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any (please no SPN), any, The gloaming."When Spencer woke up one morning, the world was over.





	In The End

**Author's Note:**

> Also written for the What If AU Challenge #4: Apocalypse.
> 
> Fills the Apocalypse square on my H/C Bingo card.

When Spencer woke up one morning, the world was over. He was confused, because the sky wasn’t quite light, and the sky wasn’t quite dark. He’d gotten back from a case at around three a.m., and he wasn’t sure how long he’d slept.

And then he blinked and really looked around, and he wasn’t in his bed at all. He’d fallen asleep on one of the metal benches in an empty VRE car. He pushed himself up, puzzled. His clothes were wrinkled, and his neck was sore from sleeping at a funny angle. But he still had both of his shoes and his satchel and his watch, so that was a win.

The car lights flickered, but Spencer was completely and utterly alone. He stood up, tested his limbs. According to his watch, he’d slept right through the night. It was - nearly seven a.m. No, that wasn’t possible. The train station would be bustling with people. Maybe Spencer’s watch was broken? But the second-hand was moving properly, and when he brought his watch to his ear to listen, it sounded like it was working properly. 

Well, maybe the time had been reset.

Because the platform was empty and dim, like it looked when the station was shutting down for the night.

This wasn’t Spencer’s stop - it was the end of the line.

So he’d fallen asleep and ridden to the end of the line, and some VRE employee who was in a hurry hadn’t seen him. His watch had malfunctioned somewhere between his getting onto the train and falling asleep.

No, before then. He’d flown in from a different time zone.

Except - except if it was seven anywhere else in the country, it was eight here.

Spencer pressed the button and the doors hissed open. Okay. Everything was operating properly. The platform was deserted and the escalators were turned off, so he headed up the stairs. The first thing he noticed was the light.

The light was - wrong. Not day, not night. Gloaming, or daybreak? 

Spencer tilted his head back to look at the sky, but he couldn’t see the sun for the thin haze of clouds. Was it just his imagination, or was the sky wrong? The wrong color, the wrong texture, the wrong -  _ something _ .

Too late, Spencer realized what was really wrong. The sound. The lack of sound. The  _ silence _ . No cars, no people, no music. No birds.

Spencer turned, taking in the world around him. Beyond the edges of the train platform, it was like the world had been carved away. The ticket booth was gone. The railings were gone. The roads were still there, but they were covered with rubble. Everything had been flattened. Cut down. If it was man-made, it was gone.

Houses. Buildings. Cars squashed like empty beer cans. Buildings knocked to the ground, not one brick on top of another. Colored glass in the streets from traffic signals (the streets were still intact). But the trees were still standing, and the bushes and plants lining the thoroughfares seemed mostly intact.

Spencer dug his cellphone out of his pocket. It still had a charge, but no signal. It showed the same time as his watch.

He stepped off the platform, clutching his satchel close, and headed for the nearest building. He sniffed the air. It was heavy in his lungs, but he didn’t smell smoke or burning any residue of an explosion. When he knelt and sifted through the rubble, he didn’t see burn marks or scorch marks. In fact, he didn’t even see any break marks. The bricks he picked up were whole, intact.

It was as if someone - or something - had simply taken the houses apart, piece by piece, brick by brick. 

Spencer went to inspect a car. It had definitely been flattened, like in a junkyard compactor.

He needed a vantage point. He needed - something, to get a sense of the damage. Already his mind was racing, climbing all over itself to figure out what had happened. Earthquake? Now way he’d sleep through one that had caused this level of damage. Tornado? They didn’t typically happen in this part of the country, but he could have slept through that. It would explain the strange haze in the sky. But a tornado couldn’t pull a house apart brick by brick. 

Spencer spun around, scanned his surroundings. The best vantage point would be a hill outside of the city. A long hike.

As he walked, he paused, checking rubble and flattened cars and wondering what the hell had happened.

And where all the people were. He hadn’t seen a single hint of human remains among the destruction. He’d seen dead bodies before. He wasn’t afraid of them. A human killed in a tornado looked no more horrifying than a human who’d died at the hands of a sadistic killer.

When Spencer got to the top of the hill - thighs aching, sweating, hair damp against the nape of his neck - he shaded his eyes against the strange half-light (he had no idea where the sun was, though he knew where it should be) - he didn’t see a neat circular radius of damage. He saw endless damage. As far as the eye could see. Just - flattening.

The green of the trees was stark and oddly bright amidst the destruction. He could see farther than he thought he would. That was an illusion, of course. Range of vision didn’t magically expand because all of the tall buildings were gone.

The rumble of hunger startled him, and he looked down at his watch. It was nearly noon. Didn’t seem any brighter for it, though the warmth and humidity did seem to have gotten worse. Or maybe that was the exertion talking. He had a couple of granola bars in his satchel, so he unwrapped one and ate it. Wasn’t sure what to do with the wrapper - he couldn’t remember the last time he saw a garbage can - so he stuffed it back into his satchel and then stood up. He needed water, and soon. The bottle of water he kept in his satchel was long empty.

Back to civilization, then, for water.

But he hadn’t seen any, while he was walking the streets. Surely destroyed buildings meant destroyed plumbing meant water everywhere.

Natural sources for water, then. Some kind of stream or river. The Potomac. That was the closest river Spencer knew offhand, and he was pretty sure he could get there on foot. Whether or not the water was potable was another matter. And if all he had was his one little water bottle, he wouldn’t be able to stray far from it. But he also needed food. He knew fishing in the Potomac was a bad idea. Maybe he could forage around the remains of a grocery store.

He checked his phone as he went. Still no signal. Still keeping time. At this point the thing was a glorified iPod. So he shut it off and pocketed it. Maybe it would be useful later.

Orienting himself without the benefit of the sun was a little difficult, but the roads were still intact. As were the road signs. Like everything else manmade - Spencer figured out that pattern easily enough - they were flattened, but they were legible, and he was on his way to the river. Because he could read the street signs - and more or less recognized the pattern of streets in his neighborhood - he found the remains of an old grocery store, poked through the rubble. Sure enough: canned goods. All lying on their side, all scattered, but not dented or otherwise harmed. He even found some of those recyclable grocery bags that Penelope so loved.

He knew the daily dietary requirements of a male his age and build, knew the shelf life of canned vegetables versus canned fruits or meats. He wasn’t sure, however, how much he could carry.

Well, he could always come back. Couldn’t he?

No. He might not be able to. Nothing was sure. He’d fallen asleep on the train and woken up in a world devoid of humans and with all traces of mankind literally flattened. He had a PhD in engineering. He could rig up some kind of system to load up some food and pull it.

And he’d need some kind of container to carry water.

He ate another power bar and set to work. Found some fallen shelves, found some paracord, and constructed a sled that he could pull with the paracord. It was simple, really - turn a shelf upside down, screw the bottom supports on it for sides, load it with canned goods and water, tie paracord to the bottom and sides, braid the paracord into a handle, and pull.

He stuck to the grass where he could, because the sound of metal grating on the pavement was awful, and also he was wary of sparks and a fire. He knew what he had to do to stay alive. Water. Food. Shelter. He had food. He was on his way to water. He could engineer shelter. Was he as tough as Morgan or Emily or Hotch? No. Was he as tech-savvy or people friendly as Garcia? No. Was he as charming as Rossi or JJ? No.

None of that mattered. He was alone. No people. No animals. He could make this work.

By the time Spencer reached the park beside the river, he was exhausted and sore, his hands blistered, and so, so thirsty his body was cramping.

According to his watch, it was six in the evening.

Or the morning. The light never changed.

He set down his sled - it was now laden with his satchel, his jacket, his sweater vest, his tie, and his shirt - and sank down on the grass. He dug through his satchel and found his multitool, used it to open a can of peaches. He ate the fruit with his hands, drank the syrup, and finally he felt better.

But he still needed water. He checked his watch. Six-thirty. He heaved himself to his feet, dusted off his pants, and carefully picked his way down the slope to the river bank. He filled his water bottle and the empty can, then climbed back up the bank to his little campsite, careful not to spill.

He had to boil the water to be safe. That involved foraging for kindling, constructing a little tripod to boil the can, and lighting a fire. Spencer kept himself on track, working through the problem step by step. It was like being a new engineering student all over again. What did he have, what did he need?

He had everything he needed, if he was willing to forage for it. He made sure to build his fire and tripod on one of the cement paths in the park so he didn’t set the grass or any trees on fire. While the can heated up, he ate another couple cans of food - some canned beans and a smaller can of tuna - and then set about trying to figure out how to make himself some shelter for the night. Even though he’d neither seen nor heard any sign of life besides himself, he was running a risk lighting a fire, that someone would see the smoke.

He thought of all the alleys he’d walked past, the elaborate shelters he’d seen the homeless build. He could make something that would keep him safe in the night - what night there might be, because it was coming up on eight o’clock and the sky was showing no sign of dimming, which was all wrong for this time of year.

Assuming Spencer hadn’t undergone some kind of Rip Van Winkle sleep. How could so much destruction have happened in so short a time? And how could he have slept through it? 

He wasn’t aware of any force on Earth that could decimate things so completely, brick by brick, but leave all of the plant life untouched. 

Why had he survived? Had he survived? Or was he dead?

The ache in his limbs from walking and pulling his little sled of food belied any notion that this was a dream. He was alive. And he was alone.

When the water boiled, he wrapped his scarf around his hand and used it to pick the can up, pour it into one of the newly empty cans to clean it, and refilled it with water from his bottle. Then he climbed down to the river to refill his water bottle. He definitely needed a bigger water container if he was going to survive.

The park had previously had several pavilions, swing sets, and slide sets. Those, like the stores and houses and cars, had been dismantled and scattered flat on the ground. He could use the canvas from the pavilion and the plastic sides to make a rudimentary shelter. The risk, of course, was that also made him a more visible target. Besides plants and trees, the world was flat.

Solution? Build between a couple of bushes, no higher than a bush. Cover the top with some branches stripped off of trees. On the off chance that there was someone or something other than Spencer who had survived whatever this was.

Armageddon. The apocalypse.

Armageddon didn’t actually mean the end of the world. It appeared once in the Bible in Greek, from the Hebrew word for the phrase Hill of Megiddo, which was prophesied to be the site of a battle to end the world.

An apocalypse meant, in typical parlance, the end of the world, but etymologically speaking it was uncovering, a revelation - typically about the end of the world.

The world wasn’t over, though. It was still standing. Trees and flowers and grass. Clouds. Some level of sun or illumination. Humanity was over, so it seemed. Humanity was not the world.

He boiled enough water to fill all three cans plus his own bottle, and he secured it in his little shelter - along with the sled of food - for safekeeping, and when his watch said it was about ten, he tried to sleep. It was hard, because the light didn’t really fade, so he curled up in a ball beneath the pavilion canvas, dragged his jacket over his head, and closed his eyes.

Spencer dozed without really sleeping or dreaming, constantly aware of the faint not-night, not-day glow behind his eyelids.

When he couldn’t take it anymore, the lying still and not really sleeping, his watch said it was about five, which wasn’t so bad. Spencer crawled out of his little shelter, and the sky was ever as it was, gloaming. Menacing, in its monotony, as if time had stopped. But it had not.

If it had, would his watch have stopped?

He ate a can of pears, drank some water, went down to the river to refill what water he had. While the water boiled, he went exploring. Still no human life, still the rubble of man-made things. He should make some kind of distillation system, get the purest, cleanest water he could. 

What to do? Get more food, definitely. Look for a better water container. Look for more life? He’d keep an eye out on the way back to the remains of the grocery store. He should get some soap, maybe some first aid supplies. He plotted while the water cooled, all the things he ought to fetch, trying to prioritize. Water container first, food second, first aid supplies and soap third. Anything else - pens and paper, clothes, those were luxuries. Some more of those recyclable grocery bags, to make transferring items from the sled to the shelter easier. Some supplies to make the sled travel more smoothly.

Once Spencer had enough water for the hike plus some more cans of food, he gathered up his sled and headed back in the direction of the grocery store. Along the way, he kept a weather eye about him, but he didn’t see any movement, any life. Didn’t hear the hum of insects or any birdsong. Once he reached the grocery store, he paused for another meal, then loaded up. Found some gallon jugs of distilled water that he could drink and then refill. Found some more food, and also some cooking utensils, because those would be handy. Matches. Several pre-made first-aid kits. And soap. 

He loaded up his sled as heavy as he dared, and then it was back to the park, to his little camp.

Still no signs of life, still no change in the sky overhead. Just the sound of his footsteps, his heavy breathing, the crunch and groan of his sled. Back at the park, he ate some more food - meat and vegetables - and then transferred his new supplies to his shelter. If he wasn’t careful, he’d run out of room in his shelter for himself at night. Build an ancillary shelter?

After the trek, he was hot and sweaty and frankly filthy, so he stripped off his clothes, washed them in the river, then washed himself. He laid his clothes out on the grass to dry - more paracord for a laundry line went on his mental list - and then let himself dry. He stayed in the shade, wasn’t sure if he would burn in this half-light, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

He turned on his phone and checked it. No signal. Battery a little lower. He turned it off and tucked it back into his satchel.

While his clothes dried, he boiled more water for drinking - because one could go without food much longer than one could go without water, plus boiling water in empty cans cleaned them out - and he closed his eyes, tried to remember.

Unsub caught. Case closed. Dozing on the jet while JJ, Emily, Morgan, and Rossi bantered in the background. Landing at the airport,  catching the train. Falling asleep on the train.

Spencer had no memory of how the world had ended.

He opened his eyes, set the water to cooling, pulled on his clothes. In his satchel he had a battered novel that he’d already read and knew from memory; a half-used notebook; a handful of pens; his multi-tool; and the granola bar wrappers. He tossed those into his little fire.

Perhaps he ought to find a shovel to dig a latrine. Even though he was, best as he could tell, the only human in existence, he was still discomfited at going to the bathroom out in the open and being naked out in the open (he’d sat huddled, legs crossed modestly at the knees while his clothes dried in the not-quite-sun).

Spencer knew how to do a grid search. He’d conducted them dozens of times for man-hunts on missing persons cases. Once he had enough supplies built up, he would do one. Look for any sign of life or what had happened. But he needed supplies.

He tried to keep to a regular circadian cycle - meals at six, noon, and six, bed at ten, awake at five - and he built a routine. Eat. Hike to the store. Eat. Gather supplies and return. Bathe. Eat and boil more water. Sleep.

He’d read plenty of survival lists, and so he started collecting the supplies on them, even though he didn’t know how to use most of the hunting supplies - and he hadn’t seen any game to hunt anyway, or any fish in the river. He built a solar distiller so he didn’t have to keep boiling water (which boiled out all the oxygen content and made it taste rather flat). 

Finally, when he had enough supplies to go out on a grid search - he’d had to build an ancillary shelter for his supplies, also camouflaged between some bushes - he set out, satchel laden with food, water, a first aid kit, and some kitchen knives repurposed as weapons. He walked. As he walked, he calculated the manpower it would take to do an intense grid search of a square mile. He switched up the variables as he walked - eleven people spaced twenty feet apart, ten people spaced thirty feet apart - but he found nothing.

No people, anyway. He did spot insects - flies, mosquitoes, bees, butterflies.

Still no animals.

He searched intensely, assuming other survivors were as canny as him, had hid their shelters so as not to be detected, trying to blend in with plants or the remains of other buildings. He couldn’t search very far, though, because at the end of the day he had to return to camp and eat, drink, bathe.

After he wasn’t sure how many days - he didn’t keep a tally - he was quite sure that he was well and truly the last living non-plant, non-insect creature on the planet.

Until he saw the dog.

It was pale-furred, with a face like a labrador but white-red fur and a spotted belly like some kind of red heeler. It had spots on its nose, too, and a wide, lolling grin for him when it came trotting up to him one day.

And it had a collar.

It came right up to him, thrust its wet nose into his hand in a demand for affection, and he sank to his knees, scratching it behind the ears and rubbing its belly - it was a  _ he _ \- and running his hand down his back over and over again. He closed his eyes and the dog licked his face, panted in his ear. According to the tag on the collar the dog was  _ Flashbang _ , and his address was in Corning, New York of all places, and his owners’ phone number had been 208-555-1421, which was strange, because 208 was the area code for Idaho. Used to be the area code for Idaho.

Flashbang nosed unapologetically at Spencer’s satchel, and Spencer hastily opened a can of beef stew for the two of them to share. Spencer abandoned his grid search and headed back to camp, and Flashbang trotted along beside him very obediently. Back at camp, Spencer laid out a bowl of water for Flashbang, drank some water himself, then went down to the river. While Spencer bathed and washed his clothes, Flashbang splashed around joyfully, and then Spencer hung his clothes to dry on a line of paracord strung between two trees. Flashbang shook the water out of his fur, then flopped down in the shade with his head on his paws and dozed.

Spencer shared his supper with Flashbang, and then he managed to coax Flashbang into the shelter with him. For the first time in a long time, Spencer really slept, listening to Flashbang breathe beside him (which was silly, because when he was home he slept alone; on cases he roomed with Morgan, who was -  _ had been _ \- very quiet).

The next day, Spencer headed for the supermarket to pick up extra food for Flashbang and also find something in the way of toys. Flashbang trotted along beside him, wagging his tail and panting happily. He’d dance away after a butterfly, but he always returned to Spencer’s side. As it turned out, Flashbang didn’t care for playing fetch or catch with a frisbee, but he did like to plop down on the grass beside the shelter and chew a frisbee to bits.

Flashbang played in the river with Spencer, and Flashbang ate with Spencer, and Flashbang sprawled out beside Spencer and chewed on his frisbee while Spencer sketched in his notebook, recreating faces of all the people he’d known and loved lest he forget (Mom Hotch Garcia Emily JJ Morgan Rossi Gideon Elle Kevin Jack Seaver Will Henry Jack Maeve).

Spencer took Flashbang on walks along the area he’d grid-searched. Surely Flashbang would be able to detect - smell, sense - some other living creature. With the job Spencer had (used to have), a pet was out of the question, even a cat like Emily had had, and a dog was certainly not an option. He’d read about how people considered pets members of their family or close friends, but he’d never experienced it, till now. Spencer knew when Flashbang was smiling at him, was guilty for having chewed on something he shouldn’t or eating more than his fair share of the food or knocking over a can of water. Spencer knew when Flashbang was grumpy or tired or hungry or lazy, knew when Flashbang wanted to play or when he wanted to lie still and just be.

Flashbang was Spencer’s best friend, his family, his -

Flashbang took off running.

Spencer didn’t think. He dropped everything he was carrying - pack, supplies - and gave chase. Sprinted. His socks were almost worn through and he’d had to patch his shoes with duct tape, the ground was uneven and perilous and his ankle nearly gave out, but he ran as fast as he could.

Flashbang was faster.

No matter. Humans were more efficient runners than dogs. Flashbang would overheat, slow. Spencer would catch up to him eventually. The terrain was flat enough that Spencer could make out Flashbang in the distance, a pale figure bouncing along.

Flashbang didn’t slow, didn’t slow, didn’t slow.

Spencer’s lungs burned. His eyes blurred with tears.

He opened his mouth to scream Flashbang’s name, but no sound came out.

He stumbled. He fell. His entire body ached, and his head swam. He sobbed into the dirt.

And then Flashbang was licking his face and panting, and he heaved himself up onto his haunches - but it wasn’t Flashbang at all, was another dog, smaller and sleeker, black with white paws, a white snout, and a white patch on its chest like a border collie. The dog also had a collar, but it was dancing back and forth in front of him so he couldn’t get a hand on it, look at it.

“Roo, no, leave him alone!”

A human voice. A girl.

Spencer blinked, scrubbed a hand over his face. A girl - maybe twenty at best - was stumbling toward him, hand outstretched. She caught the dog’s collar and hauled it backward.

“I’m so sorry,” she said to Spencer.

_ To Spencer _ .

She had dark skin and eyes, black hair tied back in a short ponytail, glasses. She wore dusty jeans, an army surplus cammo jacket over a flannel shirt, sturdy boots.

Roo sat obediently when the girl signaled with one hand, wagging her tail and panting happily. Flashbang came bounding over, and the girl made a relieved sound, caught him by the collar as well.

“Flashbang, you disobedient boy, running away from Mommy and scaring this poor man. Mommy is very angry at you.” But her tone was sweet, cajoling, as if to a small child.

Spencer scrubbed a hand over his face again to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. A person.  _ Another person. _

“I am so sorry,” the girl said again to Spencer. “Flashbang ran away from us a week ago, and we’ve been searching for him everywhere.” 

Spencer opened his mouth, but he had no words. He wasn’t alone. 

The girl knelt, peered at him. “Are you okay, sir? Are you hurt? Roo didn’t bite you, did she?”

Spencer shook his head. He couldn’t speak, and his throat locked up, and tears sprang to his eyes again. 

“Oh, sir,” the girl said, her voice laden with sympathy.

Spencer buried his face in his hands and wept.

Roo and Flashbang crowded close, licking at his hands and making distressed whimpering sounds. The girl patted him on the back gently, making wordless soothing noises.

“How long have you been alone?” the girl asked in a low voice.

Spencer shook his head. He didn’t know. He didn’t care.

“It’s all right now,” the girl said. “You’re not alone anymore.”

Not alone, not anymore.

Maybe the world wasn’t really over.

Or maybe there was a chance it could begin again.

And then the girl rose up, waving one arm frantically, and shouted, “Hey, we’re over here! I found someone!”


End file.
